Five Time Nyota Uhura Kissed James Kirk
by valyria
Summary: The last thing she needs is some complicated entanglement with her Captain. No matter how well he kisses. Kirk/Uhura fluff. Post STID.


**AN**: Kirk/Uhura ficlet written for Dimplz.

I originally started something super angsty but you've ended up with masses of fluff instead. sorry!

ps. This is the first thing I've ever written in present tense, so apologies if it slips around.

* * *

Five Times Nyota Uhura Kissed James Kirk.

* * *

1. Because She Was Drunk.

Nyota Uhura is at the San Francisco Academy campus bar. She's relaxing with her roommate and a few classmates after their first semester assessment. She hasn't slept longer than 4 hours in a row in over a week, but she's gotten top marks in "Three. _Three _of my classes Gaila!"

Her roommate rolls her eyes. "Yeah Yeah Ny. I _know._"

Nyota pouts at her tone, brings her… seventh? celebratory bourbon up lips and takes a long sip. She's starting to feel pretty buzzed. Excess energy zipping through her limbs. Abandoning her glass and friend, she stands and makes her way towards the old jukebox at one end of the bar. It's actually just a console hooked up to the bar's audio-visual feeds, but the place is meant to be rustic and human or something so they've shoved the viewscreen into a tacky antique style record player.

Nyota flips through the selection screens. The selection is shitty. All Terran, all pre-contact. None of her contemporary favourites. She picks the first absurd track she comes across, mostly out of spite. If the owners are gonna limit her selection, she's gonna pick the tackiest stuff on offer. It's in the 'A' section. A 21st century classic. An exuberant and endearingly crude song with a throbbing electronic beat and lyrics in an archaic English dialect about the fascination of the apparently well-endowed singer for 'bad bitches' and the problems that causes him.

Gaila materialises, summoned by the music as if by ancient Orion ritual. Nyota grins at her. Gaila has a fond appreciation for 20th and 21st century Terran music. Nyota is pretty sure it's because of the hyper-sexualisation popular culture suffered during that period. The Orion is twisting and dancing enthusiastically. She appears to know the words, singing along almost fluently. Nyota laughs in drunk delight and joins her.

Maybe it's the bourbon, the sleep deprivation or the stupid song, but when Nyota notices that blue-eyed hick – now a cadet – from the Midwestern recruitment drive watching them, smiling in amusement and appreciation, instead of getting annoyed she pouts and waves in a mocking caricature of seduction and blows him a kiss.

He grins at her and mimes catching it, holding it to his heart. The cadet in medical scrubs next to him rolls his eyes. But since she's in a good mood and kinda drunk, maybe Nyota might have gone and spoken to him and his scowl-y companion, but then Hendorff had arrived with a fresh round of drinks and she forgets all about the blue-eyed Iowa farmboy at the first sip of Saurian Brandy.

* * *

2. Because He Was Alive.

Four years after Nyota Uhura blew James Kirk a kiss in a bar, she presses one to his cheek.

He's lying in bed at San Francisco Gen. The Starfleet Medical Centre is a smouldering heap, along with most of the Academy Campus and half a block of downtown San Francisco. Starfleet has taken over a floor of the nearest hospital, treating injured personnel and overflow civilians alike.

Dr McCoy has been overseeing the Captain's bizarre treatment while Scotty and Spock fret over him in shifts. Nyota lets McCoy and Spock have their reunions first, McCoy out of deference to the fact that he is the Captain's closest friend and physician, and Spock because he's had something of a turbulent emotional epiphany at realising he had a _friend_ in the human sense of the word right as that person was _dying_.

Spock is standing stiffly off to one side, hands clasped behind his back when Nyota enters the room. She meets his eyes briefly then focuses her attentions upon their Captain and friend.

"Uhura!" he greets her enthusiastically.

She recognises that grin, guileless and carefree as ever, and she feels a little overwhelmed. James Kirk isn't always her favourite person, but over the last year serving under him, she's come to see there's a lot more to him than she'd thought. He's reckless and thoughtless, but he's also everything that makes Nyota proud to be a human. He's courageous and selfless and endlessly empathetic.

Seeing a person die gives you a fresh perspective upon them.

Nyota knows she can be proud and stubborn, she doesn't suffer fools lightly. But she accepts that she misjudged Jim Kirk at that bar in Iowa. He's not some crass hick looking to get in her pants. It's a part he played because she told him to.

She sits beside him on the bed and takes his hand in her own. "I'm glad you're okay Captain." she says.

His grin softens and squeezes her fingers feebly. "I hear I have you to thank for that Lieutenant." Somewhere near the door McCoy clears his throat pointedly. The Captain rolls his eyes. "Fine, Bones and Spock helped out a little too I guess." he says, waving a hand dismissively, as if McCoy managing to resurrect him with distillation of Khan's blood and Spock hunting the man down across town – leaping off buildings – are minor details.

Nyota shakes her head at his ingrained need to charm. "You don't need to thank me Captain, shooting Khan repeatedly was reward enough of its own."

He snorts in amusement. "Yeah I'll bet."

Nyota smiles, lifts a hand and brushes her fingers across his cheek. His skin is warm with a light stubble. Jim's expression changes, turns into something vulnerable and she leans forward and presses a kiss to his cheek so she doesn't have to see it.

* * *

3. Because Aliens Made Her Do It.

One minute Nyota is enjoying dissecting the local dialect and sampling the (not terrible) cuisine of Aral-ri, the next she is staring at her Captain and wondering how it was possible for anyone to have eyes _that blue._

Across the low table Dr McCoy is stroking Dr Marcus's hair in apparent wonder as she likewise investigates the fingers of his left hand with apparent fascination.

Dimly, past the golden silhouette of her Captain, Nyota can see the native leader and his companion embracing but she can't shift her focus off him. Her mouth opens, words trying to get out, but she can't untangle them. Jim seems to understand though, because he is nodding and then there are warm, (_so warm!)_, hands on her face, cupping her cheeks, pulling her closer. Her eyelids flutter shut and their lips meet soft, unhurried.

He tastes like the tart wine they have been drinking and he kisses nothing like she thought he would. She can smell him – clean and male with the faint flowery scent of the nicer shampoo the replicators are programmed to dispense. She sighs, all tension leaving her body on the exhalation. He turns his head, lathes a warm, wet tongue along her bottom lip and Nyota opens her mouth to him. The kiss deepens but it doesn't turn, become demanding or harsh. They lazily explore one another, hot wet slides of tongue and lip and Nyota's head buzzes in warm pulsing pleasure.

It feels amazing.

It _is _amazing. Kissing is… really good. Why don't people kiss more often? She moans, trying to articulate these thoughts to her Captain via his deliciously warm mouth, and he hums as if he understands, tugging her forwards and laying back so she is draped across him on the pillowed floor.

The feel of him, warm and firm beneath her, is… _good _she decides. She twists fingers in his hair and they kiss and kiss and kiss…

All in all it isn't _too _embarrassing.

The wine they'd ingested had ended up containing a very exotic cocktail of naturally occurring mind altering substances, but all Nyota had done was engage in a blissed out teenage makeout session with the Captain. They'd both been too enthralled by how amazing kissing was to do anything else.

Unlike the Doctors Marcus and McCoy.

Word around the ship was that he really _did_ have legendary hands.

Spock's not impressed, but since they were under the effects of an intoxicant, it would as he says, 'be illogical to take offence.'

* * *

4. Because She Was Sad.

Of course she regretted it almost the moment that it happened.

Spock was gone, 5 months into a 12 month sabbatical on New Vulcan with his New Wife to make New Babies, and Nyota was… heart broken. Things had never been easy for them. Firstly there was the whole human/Vulcan thing to circumnavigate, and then there was the student/teacher thing, and after that there had been the post-traumatic stress 'my entire species was basically wiped out and my homeworld destroyed' thing… So… looking back Nyota couldn't say that there had ever been a time where she's been just… _happy_ in her relationship with Spock, but she'd loved him, and she'd clung onto the idea that one day things would be good.

After years telling herself that, it was difficult to just let go. A part of her kept trying to relegate T'Pring to just another 'thing' they needed to work around. Overcome.

Of course she wasn't. She was Spock's wife and the person in the way in the situation was Spock ex-girlfriend. Nyota.

So she tried to make a clean break.

Getting drunk and kissing Hendorff wasn't the best way to go about that though. The Ensign had been carrying a torch for her since the Academy and Nyota should have known better than to lead him on. She was supposed to be his friend after all. This was how she came to be sitting alone in jefferies tube 1-19k on the cargo deck with a bottle of Saurian brandy.

She'd been there over an hour when someone finally came and found her.

Instead of Hikaru or Janice like Nyota had been expecting though, it was the Captain.

He walks towards her and takes a seat in the cramped space at her side. "Inspecting the jefferies tubes Lieutenant?" he asks.

Nyota sighs. "Yes Captain." She raps her knuckles against the wall beside her. "Gotta make sure Engineering are on top of things."

He nods in mock seriousness. "Of course." He holds out a hand and she passes him the curved brandy bottle. He takes a generous swig. "Oh!" he says. "The good stuff. You raided Bones's secret stash?"

"If by raided you mean, did he prescribe it to me and then give me a bottle, then sure."

Jim huffs in amusement and takes another sip.

They sit in silence for a little while. Nyota thinks about standing up, telling him that she's fine and thanking him for coming to find her, but she can't be bothered. Instead she wraps her arms around his arm and leans against his bicep. He doesn't seem to mind.

"You alright Uhura?" he asks, voice hesitant. "You know, about… um… Spock and all that?"

Nyota snorts and smiles into the fabric of his uniform. His attempts at providing friendly comfort and counsel are adorably inept. "I kissed Hendorff." she tells him mournfully.

"_Oh_." he says. "Probably not your greatest idea ever."

"Tell me about it." she mumbles.

"I'm sure he understands though. You and cupcake are buddies, he knows you're a bit messed up at the moment."

He has a point. "You don't think I've ruined our friendship?"

Jim shrugs a little and Nyota feels it where she's resting against him. "Nah. He's a big boy." he says. "It'd take more than one kiss from Nyota Uhura to mess him up."

She doesn't think she's ever heard him say her name before. It sounds strange, exotic, on his lips. "You never call me Nyota." she says.

She feels him turn his head to look down at her but she doesn't bother shifting to return it. "You never said I could."

She smiles and rolls her head so she can make out most of his face from where she's curled beside him. "You've known me years now." she says. "You could have made the presumption."

His eyes narrow slightly, tiny lines furrowing between his brows. It's his serious face. The one she's seen on him when he's trying to figure out diplomatic messes or stop interstellar war. "I don't like to presume anything where you're concerned… Nyota." he says, and his voice is soft and seems to almost caress her name, linger over it like it's precious.

She's staring, she knows. Looking up at those too-blue eyes of his from much too close. Her eyes dart down to his lips and she has a sudden, visceral memory of his kisses. Soft and sweet and deep. Exactly the sort of kisses she'd wanted from Hendorff and hadn't got.

"Can I make a presumption?" she asks, her face lifting, edging closer to his. She sees the hesitation on his face. He's sober and her friend and knows this is a _Bad Idea_.

Nyota lifts a hand, curls it around his jaw, suddenly desperate to keep this, not to break the moment. "Not…" she can't get the words out. Fluent in countless languages and she's floundering. "Not like that," she says, her words cryptic but the meaning clear. "Just…" she brushed her lips against his gently, gently, "Just kisses?"

Jim is stiff, frozen against her, unresponsive but hesitating. "Kisses?" he murmurs, soft, rumbling.

He smells like regulation issue soap and shampoo. It's clean and comforting and Nyota wants to get a little closer. "Like on Aral-ri?" she asks, then because of the brandy, adds: "Thought about that. About you. Your kisses…" And it's true. James Kirk's kisses have been stuck in her mind for almost a year now. Since before T'Pring.

It seems she's on to something though because Jim slides a hand up to cup her face and kisses her. His short hair is soft under her fingers and he tastes like brandy. It's not quite like she remembers – she's not out of it on alien intoxicants this time – it's soft and slow and _good_ but there's more heat there. She feels it just beneath the surface, Jim kisses her slow and deep, but his kisses feel _hungry_ and she has to stop herself from pushing for more in a way she didn't have to on Aral-ri. His short hair is soft under her fingers and he tastes like brandy.

He teases her on their next shift, treats her with the same friendly familiarity as always. Letting her know without saying it that they can forget that half hour spent in each other's arms on the Engineering deck if she wants to. That he doesn't expect anything from her.

Her relief is immense. The last thing she needs is some complicated entanglement with her Captain. No matter how well he kisses.

Still.

Nyota finds herself thinking about Jim Kirk's chapped lips and warm hands instead of Spock's dark eyes and almost-smile when it's very late and she should be sleeping.

She isn't sure if it's a good thing or not.

* * *

5. Because She Wanted To.

She thinks about Jim Kirk, and Jim Kirk's kisses a lot. But she doesn't ask him for another.

She sees the way he looks at her sometimes, when he thinks no one can see - sad and longing - and she knows that she has no right to be kissing someone who looks at her like that, not unless she's looking the same back at them.

He's injured. Nearly dies. More than once.

Each time Nyota finds herself at his bedside alongside Scotty and McCoy, counted amongst his closest friends. He misses Spock she knows, especially in these moments. They share a special bond, a deep friendship more like brotherhood. She knows Jim loves Spock as much as he loves McCoy, but Jim is Spock's only real friend, and that makes it different. She wonders at that. There's must be a reason that in his years at Starfleet surrounded by humans Spock has only ever gotten close to Nyota and Jim. They must share some trait, something Nyota can't pin down, that allowed the Vulcan to let them in. She thinks that maybe one day she will ask him.

Then Kirk says something stupid and McCoy rolls his eyes and Nyota remembers that day in San Francisco after Khan, when Jim had returned to them from the dead, and she thinks that Spock _should_ be here. At Jim's side. Standing beside her and McCoy. He should be on the Enterprise with them, it's where he belongs. The thought of being near him doesn't hurt her like it used to.

Nyota feels lighter with the realisation.

Of course when Spock does return, it's awful.

It takes a month before she can relax on the bridge, and she still can't bear to look her former lover in the eye. Spock has undergone further training in the mental disciplines during his time on New Vulcan and with his new emotional control, Nyota suspects she is one of very few who can see the tiny fractures of emotions his human half leave on his face. It saddens her. Spock is more Vulcan than ever, but she cannot help but feel he is diminished. The things that drew her to him when they first met – that droll razor wit that some people didn't even notice, the hint of a smile in the left hand corner of his mouth and of course the _heat _in his eyes – they are gone. Buried by the tenants of Kolinahr he has been studying if not mastering.

With him stalking the ship like a ghost, Nyota finally lets go of Spock. Stops wanting him. It's freeing. The tension on the bridge evaporates. Nyota still smiles at Spock on those rare occasions he amuses her, still sings in the officer's mess if he plays his harp, but… her heart doesn't skip when she catches his silhouette out of the corner of her eye. She doesn't dream of fingers pressed to her face and thoughts echoing in her mind.

She dreams of blue eyes and smiles. Of Jim Kirk and his slow, slow, kisses.

Twice she almost kisses him. Once at Janice Rand's impromptu birthday party, and then again in medbay after the Metron incident on Cestus III. She doesn't though. He is her Captain and her friend and she needs to be certain. She doesn't want to give him a heat of the moment kiss and then realise it was just friendship and a handsome face that moved her.

In the end it's about as far from 'heat of the moment' as possible.

He stops by her quarters, Dr McCoy in tow, and gives her a PADD. He'd come across an article in some journal he was reading and he thought she'd be interested, since it was co-authored by one of her old Xenolinguistics professors at the Academy. They exchange casual friendly greetings and then he and the Doctor continue on to wherever they were going.

Nyota reads the article. It's quite interesting.

She imagines James Kirk glancing through it and thinking of her. Loading it onto a PADD because he knows that she prefers reading on a PADD rather than a view screen and carrying it to her door instead of just sending her a link over the comm system.

It's a simple gesture, a friendly one. Nyota's reaction to it is not one of friendly appreciation though. She feels giddy. Silly. He's done far more romantic things for her over the years - he more or less stalked her on and off for three years at the Academy after all. James Kirk is a little bit in love with her, she's certain of it. Has been for some time. But holding the PADD and smiling to herself in her cabin, Nyota thinks maybe,_ maybe_ she might love him back. Just a little.

The next time he flirts with her, she decides, she'll flirt right back.

Except – he doesn't. Flirt with her that is.

He used to, she remembers. The man was shameless about it at the Academy. She's not sure when he stopped, but now he's just professional and friendly. Apart from the way he looks at her sometimes, there's nothing. Nyota ponders her situation and weeks turn into months. It hits her, painfully, when Kirk, Spock and Sulu are all banged up in medbay after an away mission gone wrong. Spock and McCoy are bitching at one another to the quiet amusement of everyone within earshot, Hikaru is sighing dramatically and being lavished in attention by Chekov and Janice and Nyota is standing near the Captain's bed, holding his hand as a nurse runs a dermal regenerator over his perennially busted face.

He smirks at her as McCoy intentionally uses a particularly archaic simile just so Spock will say something scathing in reply. Something about voodoo witch doctoring. Nyota rolls her eyes at their antics. Jim squeezes her hand and looks over at the bickering Vulcan and Doctor fondly.

It's sudden, her realisation that James Kirk doesn't intend to _ever _make a move on her. He's locked her away in a box marked 'do not touch' and that's where he's going to leave her. If she wants him, she's going to have to break out of that box herself.

It's helpful actually, the realisation that she has to act. Nyota Uhura has always been a woman to get what she wants, and now that she _knows_ what she wants, the getting doesn't seem that hard.

She visits his quarters after his first shift back on rotation.

He smiles at her, invites her in. He hasn't eaten yet and asks if she wants to join him. She tells him no and then she kisses him.

She hasn't kissed Jim Kirk in almost a year, and she's never kissed him sober, but the moment her lips touch his her body remembers. She tilts her head automatically, lifts a hand to the nape of his neck and curls the other around his side. In a matter of seconds her body is slotted perfectly against his, as if they were designed to fit together, two pieces of the same puzzle.

For a moment it is as slow and sweet as she remembers, but hesitant and unsure. He pulls back and looks at her, confusion across that handsome face of his. She doesn't want to talk so she kisses him again, insistent this time, and for few seconds he is passive, but then Jim seems to snap and he is pulling her crushingly close, kissing her desperately, as if he is trying to absorb the essence of her via some sort of kiss osmosis. She kisses back just as urgently, fingers digging into him, body pressed hard against his. Nyota kisses him and kisses him, kisses him until she is confident the 'do not touch' label has been torn up in his mind.

He pulls back slightly when the need for oxygen overcomes them, but their lips stay touching and they are panting into each other's mouths. _"Nyota."_ he says, and his voice is that low rough rumble like when he takes the early morning delta shift or wakes up in medbay. She opens her eyes and finds him staring at her, blue eyes blown and something fierce and tender written across his face.

Nyota loves that her kisses have done that. That is her, _her_ name on his lips. A nameless feeling, hot and possessive, bubbles up inside her and she has to kiss him, has to taste that perfect mouth again and steal the breath from his lungs. They stumble backwards, and then there is his bunk and the only thing on Nyota's mind is Jim Jim Jim. He touches her reverently, obsessively, like he can't believe he is allowed to.

"So long Nyota." he says, low and pained against her neck, where he is kissing her. "Wanted you so long." And she knows that's not really what he's saying, because this is more than just want. It isn't just her looks that have kept his eyes on her for years. He has reason to hold back though, she's kept him waiting for so long, shoved to the side. She knows how to communicate though, she's good at it. It's her job. So she pulls him closer, scratches nails softly over his scalp and soft short hair, and says "Love you."

He rises up above her, looks down at her slack-jawed and wide-eyed, lovely in his shock. Nyota smiles, reassuring him that yes, she meant to say that, and yes she meant it. She watches as he absorbs it, her love. He takes a little breath and his face softens for a moment, making him look very young, and then he is grinning at her. "Yeah?" he asks, his voice a slow drawl, suddenly that Iowa farmboy from years ago.

Nyota grins. "Yeah." she agrees easily. "Love you."

He kisses her again but they are both smiling and it's doesn't quite work.

Later on he says it back to her, whispers it into her mouth like a secret and even though she already knew, Nyota's heart soars.


End file.
